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CT-37
The CT-37, more commonly known as the Pirate Fighter, is a model of aircraft that is featured in the 1990 Disney Channel animated cartoon series TaleSpin. It is used by the notorious Air Pirates in their criminal activities. Background Originally developed for the military, this fighter plane instead found its way into the hands of the Air Pirates lead by Don Karnage. Details The CT-37 is a floatplane fighter uses a bi-plane wing configuration, the only fighter plane to do since the older planes of the Great War period. Instead of a raised wing design, the CT-37 has its wings on either side of the fuselage with metal braces for stabilization. Not equipped with conventional landing gear, the aircraft instead uses a pair of pontoons mounted on the bottom of each wing brace. While it enables water landings, the pontoons tend to gain momentum during fast maneuvers, making it difficult to steer the plane at times. In addition, the underside of the pontoons have a rocker-like shape, which makes the plane flip over during landing if the nose is too far forward. On the topic of landing gear, grounded CT-37s aboard the Iron Vulture are sometimes depicted in the series with landing gear. The CT-37 features a standard tail assembly, albeit with a very large rudder, which allows pilots to side-slip, meaning that complicated maneuvers are possible. However, the rudder is quite powerful, as one slight overcorrection could put the plane into an uncontrollable spinning dive. Working in tandem, the wing surfaces give the fighter exceptional agility rivaling that of Khan Industries' Panther fighters. However, like most other aircraft, the CT-37 is only as good as the person who pilots it, and very few pilots are able to get the most out of their planes. Though the Air Pirates are undertrained and unpolished pilots, they make up for this with their ferocity in combat, making the CT-37 a deadly opponent to face in combat. Armaments The CT-37's main armament is a pair of 20mm caliber cannons mounted in the wing stabilizers. Observers claim that the guns on the planes were not replaced, but instead were modified by the Air Pirates to use various types of ammunition. This is an important innovation, since the pirates' shipping raids seldom provide them with the one unique type of ammo the guns originally required. Some Air Pirates would install makeshift bomb racks on the underside of their planes. Modifications Except for their standard drab brown and blue color schemes, pirate CT-37s are much different than when they were first built. Several of them have new components, and many of them have replaced or salvaged parts in them. All of them had something done to the flight controls and instruments, but only a select few were completely overhauled. Although, operations of this degree are a luxury to the parts-hungry pirates. Aside from the aforementioned bomb racks and modified 20mm cannons (see Armaments), the Air Pirates would also implement other modifications to their planes, such as illegal radio equipment and homemade ejection seats among other custom features. Very few pirates would use a custom paintjob on their planes, often due to lacking sufficient ranking within the organization to do so. The most notable modification that could be done to the CT-37 is the addition of a third pair of wings, resulting in a triplane, which is very uncommon. The only known CT-37 to have a triplane wing configuration is Don Karnage's personal plane, the Tri-Wing Terror. Service History The CT-37s piloted by the Air Pirates are almost constantly used in their shipping raids and in skirmishes with air patrol planes. As a result, they have the lowest surival rate of any one-man aircraft in service. Even though several planes a month are lost to gunfire, crashes, or general wear and tear, the Air Pirates have a seemingly endless supply of them, at least enough at a time for each pirate to use. This suggests that the pirates might actually construct CT-37s from scratch, or simply salvage enough parts from the wrecks to build them. Drawbacks Just as the CT-37 has its advantages, it has its own disadvantages to go with them. The most major flaw is the construction of the plane itself. The engine, fuel tank, and cockpit are all packed into the main fuselage, making a significant area of the plane especially vulnerable to attack. With the key components so tightly packed together, a few well-placed hits up the underside can send the fighter down in flames. The CT-37's engine, the Viper Turbo-1, is also a critical fault. It performs well enough during normal flight, but steep climbs have an unknown effect on the fuel manifold and air intakes that causes the engine to stall in midair. Unless the aircraft was flying at a high altitude, there usually wouldn't be enough time for the engine to restart before it crashes. External Link(s) *Pirate Fighter page on AnimationSource.org's TaleSpin source page Category:TaleSpin Category:Fighters Category:Floatplanes Category:Prop Driven